


Blue, Red, Green

by lumateranlibrarian



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: But what else is new?, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, In Which the Anchor manifests in a very unusual way, The Wrath of Heaven, and Cadash swears a lot, with a few personal headcanons thrown in
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-12
Updated: 2017-05-12
Packaged: 2018-10-31 02:07:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10889448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lumateranlibrarian/pseuds/lumateranlibrarian
Summary: Here’s the deal.Japhra Cadash was minding her own business: trying to maneuver the dwarf mafia, dealing with several traumatizing events from her past, trying to leave one very unsavory lifestyle for a slightly less unsavory lifestyle—just doing her thing—when suddenly she gets the chance to take a job that, if successful, could change everything.It doesn’t go well. The building blows up, she loses several hours’ worth of very important memories, and now there’s magical glowing rocks growing out of her hand.So begins our story.Side note: The humans are pissed.





	Blue, Red, Green

**Author's Note:**

> Please take note of the warnings listed in the tags. There is a short but explicit flashback scene near the end. I don't believe it's particularly severe, but I want to have all bases covered just to be safe. If you'd prefer not to read that part, please skip the italicized portion directly following the fifth Roman numeral.

I.

  
  


Her thoughts were slow to form, and her head pounded. Her field of vision flickered in and out of blackness.  _ Ancestors. _ It felt like she’d been thrown by a raging bronto.

_ What… what happened? _

The dwarf moaned, and rubbed at her forehead.

Or, rather, she  _ would _ have, but the instinctive action was halted by two things. First, a pair of metal cuffs around her wrists pulled taut against a chain linked to the floor. Second, out of nowhere, her left arm was seized by a sharp, sputtering pain. The muscles contracted, her arm jerked uncontrollably, and a breathless sob escaped before she could pull it back.

Nearby, someone shifted. Their armor clanked and scraped against a mail shirt. “Tell me why we shouldn’t kill you now.”

Japhra flinched away from the voice in front of her, but once again, the manacles stopped her from going too far. She blinked several times to dispel the dark fog from her eyes. 

_ Where am I? _

Her apparent captor towered before her. It was difficult to tell much from their silhouette backlit by the fire, but the shape and voice were female. To her left and right were empty cells. They were human-sized, with gaps between the bars big enough for a motivated elf to slip between. Typical. The cells were lined with dirt and moldy straw, but Japhra herself appeared to be kneeling in the middle of the room over a stone floor patterned roughly after a Chantry sunburst.

_ That answers that question… but how did I get here? _

“The Conclave is destroyed. Everyone who attended is dead,” the figure seethed. “Except for you.”

Japhra swallowed. Her mouth tasted sour, and her tongue was heavy and sluggish. She must have been unconscious for a long time. She didn’t answer, but glared up at the woman incredulously. Destroyed?  _ When? _

The woman before her paced, fist gripping the hilt of the sword at her waist. There was a shield over her shoulders, but she moved like it was made of feathers. Japhra searched her memory, and found only emptiness. The air disappeared from her lungs. She couldn’t remember being caught, even if she  _ had _ done something, which of course she  _ hadn’t, _ that had  _ not _ been a part of her orders—

Impatient, the woman opened her mouth again, and moved to draw her sword. Japhra sucked in a hissing breath, and lunged backwards as far as her restraints would allow, and in the same moment, her left hand burst into yellow-green flames.

She screamed. 

But just as quickly as it had started, it stopped, leaving her fingers twitching with phantom pain. Japhra stared at her palm in horror. The center of her leather glove had been burned away, charred black around the edges. Supplanted in the soft, sand-colored skin were three small, glowing green seed crystals. They flickered urgently in time with the pain in her hand.

_ “Isana,” _ Japhra choked. Her stomach churned. “No… no,  _ no…” _

There was a sound like shifting armor behind her, and mutters from guards she hadn’t registered before. Panic flaring like the burst of a match, Japhra pulled sharply against her restraints. But whatever had been done to her, it had made her weak. The manacles cut into her wrists and her hand sparked insistently. Heart booming in her ears, Japhra froze.

The woman let go of her sword, and crouched before her. She grabbed Japhra’s wrist, and pulled at her hand. “Explain this.”

_ Nevarran accent, _ Japhra noted wildly. “I can’t.”

“What do you mean, you can’t?” the woman cried. She threw Japhra’s hand back towards her, and sharply stood.

“I don’t know how that got there,” Japhra shouted back. “I don’t know what it is!”

She shuddered. _ Isana. _

The woman’s hand fisted in Japhra’s cowl. “You’re lying!”

Japhra flailed, but before she could get in a solid blow, another human stepped in. They pulled the woman away with an insistent push to the shoulder. “Stop. We need her, Cassandra.”

_ Cassandra. _ A name to go with the sharp, bronze-skinned face. Japhra tucked the information away as the newcomer studied her with precise and probing eyes. She wore mail and leather armor, and a purple hood was pulled over her head. Unlike Cassandra, this one stood motionless as she analyzed Japhra. In and of itself, that was telling; people only stood that still when they were suppressing their own tells. Where had she  _ come _ from? 

Japhra met her eyes stubbornly. “Whatever you think I did, I didn’t do,” she promised. Every word was fully formed and icy as it fell from her lips. “Let me go.”

Unsurprisingly, her demands were ignored.

“Do you remember what happened?” the unnamed woman pressed as Cassandra reluctantly fell back. “How this began?” Her voice was calmer, but only by a marginal degree. She studied Japhra coldly, and Japhra steeled herself. There was a detached look on the human’s face, one Japhra recognized from having worn a thousand times herself. It didn’t matter what answer she gave these people. It wouldn’t be the one they wanted.

That was hardly a reason not to try. At least when they tortured her, she could say she went into it kicking and screaming.

She took a deep breath, and the frigid, dry air burned at her throat. She tried to remember.

_ Spiders. Clicking. _

_ “Climb!” _

_ A figure, tall, made of light. _

_ “Hurry!” _

“I was…” Japhra began hesitantly, unable to make sense of the images in her mind. “Running. I was being chased. And… a woman?”

“A woman?” her interrogator wondered, and her voice softened for half a heartbeat.

Japhra shook her head, and closed her eyes. The memory was slipping through her fingers like sand. “She… she reached out to me… but then…”

_ Nothing? _

“... nothing,” Japhra finished, voice small in her shock, and it suddenly it struck home how utterly, undeniably screwed she was.  
  


 

II.

  
  


Not ten minutes out of the Chantry dungeons on their way to do  _ something _ about a hole in the sky, they ran into an obstacle. Several obstacles, actually: angry townsfolk, a flaming missile from the sky destroying a bridge, and, oh yes— _ demons. _

“Hey!” Japhra bellowed hoarsely, and threw a chunk of ice at the back of the creature’s head. “Nug-shit! Hey!”

The demon, a pale, spindly-armed monstrosity with a spiked head, screeched and whirled towards her, giving Cassandra enough time to roll up and away from what would likely have been a death blow. It stalked towards Japhra, and she reversed her grip on her new daggers. The demon halted, and cruel intelligence glittered behind its eyes as the ground beneath it began to glow and writhe.

“You’ve gotta be shitting me,” Japhra muttered. What new magic demon shit was  _ this? _

Luckily, she didn’t have to find out, as Cassandra stabbed the demon clean through with her sword and twisted. Japhra let her daggers drop in relief as the demon wailed and drooped before fading away. 

“What do you think you you’re doing?” Cassandra barked. She stomped forward, and her armor clanked ominously over the ice. “Put down your weapons.”

Japhra balked. “What the—what are you— _ no! _ I can think of ten good reasons not to.”

Cassandra pointed her sword at the middle of Japhra’s chest. If looks could kill... “Can you, now?”

Instead of stepping back, Japhra looked very pointedly at Cassandra’s sword, and raised both her eyebrows. She stared at Cassandra, and the warrior’s face turned an alarming shade of red. Cassandra growled, and re-sheathed her weapon.

“Would you like me to list the rest?” Japhra continued. “Aside from you not trusting me, which  _ really _ makes me want to not trust you, there are demons falling from the sky, the people of Haven think I’m to blame for that  _ thing _ up there and probably want me dead, I don’t have any memory of how I got here or what even  _ happened, _ and I would really appreciate you calming! The fuck! Down!”

Chest heaving, Japhra clenched her fists and waited for Cassandra to back off.

Except then, the human  _ smirked. _ “Perhaps I was hasty in my assumption.”

Japhra fumed.  _ You think? _

Cassandra sobered, then, and her face became stern again. “Keep those,” she allowed, as if the decision was hers. “You may not find better on our way to the Temple. Or what remains of it.”

“What’s up there?”

“Do you truly not know?”

A ball of green, ghostly fire soared overhead, screaming as it went before slamming into the mountainside just out of sight. The not-so-distant sound of terrified shouting and demons screeching reached them a heartbeat later, and she swallowed. “No.”

The Seeker stared at her, expression unreadable.

“Tell me what’s up there,” she pleaded, and shoved her daggers into her belt with fumbling fingers. “I had friends at the Conclave too. Please.”

Another moment passed before Cassandra shook her head and looked away. “The Temple was reduced to rubble and ash. To our knowledge, only the Breach and the corpses remain. You are the only survivor. If you speak the truth... I am sorry for your loss.”

Far above them, the Breach let out a thunderous  _ crack _ that shook the air. Simultaneously, the three crystals on her palm  _ sparked _ and  _ sang. _ She gritted her teeth against a wave of nausea and loathing.

Those dwarves hadn’t been her friends. They could barely even be called colleagues. It didn’t matter. She shouldn’t  _ care. _

_ Isana. _

“Dwarf?”

Cassandra stood halfway across the frozen waterway, one foot already on the slope that would lead them back to the mountain path. Concern and wariness battled on the Seeker’s face.

“My name is Japhra,” she grumbled, but followed the human anyways.

  
  


III.

  
  


The elf with the staff dropped her wrist, and she fell to her knees as the rift in the air before them snapped shut with a deceptively quiet rumble.

Something pushed up under her skin, like rolling waves of pins and needles. She felt too big for her frame—a wild, heady feeling of being stuffed into armor several sizes too small. Her body was buzzing, and her heartbeat thundered in her ears. Her hands shook. She curled over herself as she struggled to breathe, and braced one hand against the ground. Her fingers squelched in the mud. Her bones  _ hummed. _

“The sensations should dissipate quickly,” the elf reassured her. He sounded more interested than concerned. “Can you stand?”

“I… yeah.” She swallowed, her throat hoarse. “Yeah, I think so.” On watery legs, Japhra wobbled to her feet. She looked at her palm, and the flickering stones in it. Then she looked up at the elf. “How did you do that?”

“I did nothing,” he admitted. “The credit is yours.”

Japhra shook her head. “Not me. This.”

The elf considered this. “Whatever magic opened the Breach in the sky also placed that Mark upon your hand. I theorized the Mark might be able to close the rifts that have opened in the Breach’s wake, and it seems I was correct.”

Cassandra stomped over. “Meaning it could also close the Breach itself?”

“Possibly,” the elf said neutrally. He turned back to Japhra. “It seems  _ you _ hold the key to our salvation.”

“Good to know,” someone called. “Here I thought we’d be ass-deep in demons forever.”

The speaker interrupted Japhra’s gobsmacked, horrified, and stammering response, and gratefully she looked to the only person around who seemed to be making any sense. “You’re who, exactly?”

“Varric Tethras,” the dwarf introduced himself with a swagger in his step as he approached. “Rogue, storyteller, and occasionally—” he winked at the Seeker, who sneered at him. “—unwelcome tagalong.” 

Japhra studied the man. His accent marked him as a Free Marcher like herself, but from one of the coastal cities. He didn’t bite his consonants when he spoke; that was characteristic of non-native speakers of the dwarven language. Going by the make of his clothes, he was probably a member of the Merchants’ Guild, or at least from one of the families. A second- or third- generation Kalna, then. She ran through a quick list of names in her head. There had been a Tethras clan in Kirkwall, hadn’t there?

_ Ancestors, the Carta would kill to get their hands on a crossbow like that. _

Her eyes flickered to Cassandra and back. “Are you with the Chantry, or…?”

The elf laughed derisively. “Was that a serious question?”

Both she and Varric ignored him. 

“Technically, I’m a prisoner, just like you,” Varric shrugged, with an easy smile that did not go with the demon guts coating his boots.

“I brought you here to tell your story to the Divine,” Cassandra growled from the side. “Clearly, that is no longer necessary.”

Varric bowed at the waist sarcastically. “And yet, here I am. Lucky for you, considering current events.”

There was history between these two, that much was clear. Japhra had no idea what it was, but anyone who was willing to aggravate the near-six-foot warrior for shits and giggles was good in her books. She just hoped he’d be able to protect himself when Cassandra finally snapped. She stepped past the elf, and extended her hand.

“I’m Japhra.”

_ “Just _ Japhra?” Varric wondered as they shook, giving her a once-over much like she’d given him.

“It’s nice to meet you, Varric.”  _ A smooth-talking son-of-a-nug after my own heart. Wonder if I can fleece him for anything? _

“You may reconsider that stance with time,” the elf mused.

Varric didn’t seem offended, and instead he patted his crossbow comfortingly. “Aww, I’m sure we’ll become great friends in the valley, Chuckles.”

“Absolutely not!” Cassandra interrupted venomously. “Your  _ help _ is appreciated, Varric, but—”

“Have you been in the valley lately, Seeker?” Varric reminded her. “Your soldiers aren’t in control anymore. You need me.”

Cassandra made a disgusted noise, but didn’t protest further.  _ Interesting. _ The elf cleared his throat.

“My name is Solas, if there are to be introductions. I am pleased to see you still live.”

Japhra’s heart dropped into her stomach as she looked at him. “Was that in question?”

“For a time, yes.”

“He means ‘I kept that Mark from killing you while you slept’,” Varric translated helpfully, but her mind was already reeling.

“You know about this? What is it? Why do I have it? What does it have to do with the demons?”

Solas laughed, but it wasn’t as unkind as before. “All excellent questions, but the time to answer them is not now,  _ if _ I can answer them at all.”

“Solas is an apostate,” Cassandra explained grimly.

“Technically, all mages are apostates now,” Solas corrected her. “My travels have allowed me to learn much of the Fade, far beyond the experiences of any Circle mage. I came to offer whatever help I can give with the Breach. If it is not closed, we are all doomed, regardless of origin.”

Japhra glanced up at the Breach. “Oh. Great.”

Going by Solas’ small, exasperated sigh, if there was a right answer, that probably hadn’t been it. He started to speak with Cassandra, and Japhra tuned them out as they argued over the specifics of what magic caused the tear in the sky. She opened her palm. The Mark peeked out from her ruined glove, the light still fluttering concordantly with the Breach overhead. The crystals seemed to resonate with energy, but it felt less frantic and more settled than it had when she’d awoken. The pain wasn’t as sharp as before.

“That’s it, huh?” Varric ambled over to her side and squinted at the crystals. “Well, shit. That looks like…”

“Not blue, though, is it?” she murmured.

He gave her a grim look. “It doesn’t always have to be.”

“Fuck. I don’t even want to know what that means.”

“I gotta say, whatever that is? I don’t envy you,” Varric admitted. 

Japhra sighed. “Can’t blame you for that.”

  
  


IV.

  
  


Up close, the Breach was serene. Terrifying, and beyond anything she’d ever seen before… but here, at the epicenter, it was almost calm.

It extended for miles into the sky; a pillar of light and swirling green energy that crackled sporadically with lightning and thunder. Pieces of debris hung sluggishly in the air overhead. They drifted on currents of magic, circling the Breach slowly like they were caught on a gentle breeze.

The ground directly beneath the Breach had been completely reduced to dust and gravel. Further out, the wreckage included the remnants of crumbled walkways and shattered staircases. Charred corpses dotted the courtyard, but fewer than outside. Was that because there had been less people to witness the explosion, or because the explosion had burned all but the toughest skeletons away?

Carefully, Japhra detached herself from the line of thought. She could process the magnitude of the destruction later. She shook her head, trying to clear the sourceless ringing from her ears.

Varric whistled lowly as they approached. “The Breach is a  _ long _ way up.”

Something skittered on the path behind them, and the four of them whirled, drawing weapons. Varric swung his crossbow down from his shoulder, and a bolt clicked into place. The apostate took several quick steps out of the way as he spun his staff, magic crackling at the ready.

“Wait!”

It was Leliana, with a team of archers and scouts behind her. “You’re here! Thank the Maker.” she called.

Cassandra put away her sword. “Leliana.” The relief in her voice was profound but short-lived. “Have your men take up positions around the Temple.” 

Leliana nodded grimly, and turned to her scouts, muttering quiet orders that had them peeling off from the group one by one. Cassandra looked to Japhra. “This is your chance to end this. Are you ready?”

_ No. _

“Yeah,” Japhra said. “You got a plan?”

“This Rift is the first, and it is the key,” Solas speculated. Calculations ran behind his eyes as he replaced his staff over his shoulders. “Seal it, and perhaps we seal the Breach.”

“Then let’s find a way down,” Cassandra commanded. “Be careful.”

“Don’t have to tell  _ me _ twice,” Japhra muttered. Only Varric heard her, and the other dwarf gave a nervous chuckle.

The path down to the crater was winding, and seemed to follow the ruins of the temple. The entire ceiling had caved in, and it took an age to climb and clamber over each massive boulder in their path. Japhra laced her fingers together to give Solas a foothold onto one. Cassandra clasped her hands to pull her over another.

“Oh, no…”

Varric had wandered ahead. His crossbow tipped towards the ground, and he raised one hand against a reddish glow from close by.

“What is it?” Cassandra called, drawing her sword. Varric swallowed, but didn’t answer as the Seeker made her way towards him. Japhra shared a wary look with Solas before following, and when she rounded the corner, she stopped in her tracks.

“Fire and  _ Blight,” _ she whispered. Her stomach rolled, and out of nowhere, her head began to pound.

Massive liths of scarlet crystal jutted from the ground, glowing with inner light.

“This is Red Lyrium, Seeker,” Varric warned softly.

Cassandra sounded even more stunned than she looked. “I see it, Varric.”

“But what’s it  _ doing _ here?” Varric wondered. It sounded less rhetorical and more desperate than Japhra thought he meant it to. She could understand—being  _ this close _ to a crystal  _ this wrong _ felt like breathing in honey instead of air. She could almost hear it, like a choir.

“Magic could have drawn on Lyrium beneath the Temple,” Solas offered softly.

Varric’s face looked drawn and pale, but it could have been a trick of the light. He wiped at his mouth with the back of his hand. “It’s evil,” he spat. “Whatever you do, don’t touch it.”

Japhra barely heard him.

_ I have to know. I have to be sure. _

She took an unbalanced step forward. She pressed the heels of her palms into her forehead until the dizziness receded.

“Japhra?”

She ignored them, and carefully approached the nearest outcrop of lyrium.

“Hey, didn’t you hear me? I said, don’t  _ touch—” _

She pulled off her ruined glove with her teeth, dropping it into her other hand. She held up her palm to the light of the gleaming, red-orange stone.

The two sets of crystals pulsed with the same energy. The throb of the Red Lyrium was slower, deeper and more powerful, like a creature sleeping, breathing sick air, dragging her in and out on a tide… the Mark, a rich emerald, flickered faster, almost like it had a heartbeat of its own. It felt  _ alive _ and awake and curious...

“A fascinating hypothesis,” Solas murmured from just behind her.

She jerked away from the Red Lyrium, and her back hit the apostate’s chest in her sudden flight. They stumbled, but he caught her before she could lose her footing completely. The jolt and the strong hand around her arm woke her up like a bucket of lukewarm water after a night of drinking herself silly: uncomfortable, but it got the job done, dragging her back to something approaching normal.

“Thanks,” she muttered, and tried to subtly shake herself.

_ What  _ was _ that? Am I going insane? It’s supposed to run in families... _

Solas released her, scrutinizing her expression. “This warrants further investigation, assuming we survive.”

“That’s the spirit,” she said flatly.

After that, Varric kept giving her sideways glances. She did her best to ignore it. They picked their way down to the courtyard, falling into line behind her as they went. The drop from the walkway to the ground was a sizeable one, but she managed to roll with it, coming up half-covered in ash.

_ “Someone, help me!” _

The cry for help stopped her cold. “What’s going—”

_ “—on here?” _

Cassandra landed heavily behind her, armor clanking. “That was your voice!” the Seeker breathed. “Most Holy called out to you, but…”

_ “Run while you can! Warn them!” _

Japhra frowned, and crept into the courtyard. There was nowhere to hide, and yet the floor of the temple was deserted, save for the agents positioned along the walkways above them.

_ “We have an intruder. Slay the dwarf.” _

She followed the voices, and looked up, into the Breach. “Oh.”

Like ink spilling into water, images were flooding out of the vortex to hang in the air. A dark, vaguely-human-shaped creature with red eyes that glowed towered over them, unseeing as it held out one hand. A woman, elderly and in Chantry robes, hung suspended with her arms outstretched, staring straight at Japhra.

“You  _ were _ there!” Cassandra insisted. “Who attacked? And the Divine, is she…? Was this vision true? What are we seeing?”

She tore her eyes away from the drama unfolding. “I keep trying to tell you. I don’t  _ remember.” _

Solas cleared his throat behind them. “The Fade bleeds into this place,” he murmured. “These are but echoes of what happened here. This rift is not sealed, but it is closed... albeit temporarily. I believe that with the Mark, the rift can be opened, and then sealed properly and safely. However, opening the rift will likely attract attention from the other side.”

“What do you—” she demanded.

“That means demons!” Cassandra shouted.

“How can the Fade—wait, maybe we can—”

“Stand ready!” The Seeker looked down at Japhra, and gestured sharply towards the Breach above them with an upward thrust of her sword.

Frustrated and panicked, Japhra did as the human bid her. She threw her hand towards the Breach, and the Mark began to hum. Wild vibration ran up her bones, and she dug her heels into the ground as the monstrous rift above them resisted. She growled, and willed the Mark to  _ open, _ not close. Her arm began to heat uncomfortably, and just as she thought it might be too much to bear, a bolt of electricity spiraled down and connected with her hand.

She screamed as the Mark exploded with pain. Some force tugged her forward, and she threw herself  _ back, _ ripping a hole in the sky.

Again, apparently.

Something inside the rift screeched.

“Well, shit,” Varric announced plainly. “What were you saying about attention, Chuckles?”

As Japhra climbed to her feet, something enormous and armored stepped out of the Breach, and her eyes went wider than shields.

“Now!” the Seeker cried, and Leliana’s scouts opened fire.

  
  


V.

  
  


_ “Japh? Japh, baby, I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I messed up. Fuck. Please come out. I’m sorry! Don’t hide… oh, Ancestors. Ancestors, what have I… Japhra? Where are you?” _

_ She shrinks deeper into the closet. Blood drips down over her eye, and she presses her sleeve against the gouge in her brow. She swallows a sob. _

_ Konna turns towards the sound. _

_ She sucks in a sharp breath. The crystals that speckle her sister’s skin should be blue. They’re red. She blinks. No, they’re green. _

_ Her hand seizes with sudden pain, and she looks down. Half her arm has turned to multifaceted, gleaming stone, threaded with veinlike strands of yellow light. The veins cross from stone to flesh, reaching down into the skin as they creep up, up, closer and closer to her shoulder with each heartbeat. _

“Oh, Aeducan’s ass!” Japhra shrieked, and flung her arm out, away from her body. “Oh, Ancestors, oh, no, oh, _ shit!”  _

With a horrified scream, she jerked backwards. Her head collided with the wall, and she hissed in pain. Someone nearby let out a soft gasp, and she scrambled to gather her wits. She clutched her stone hand to her chest. With a snarl, she shifted her weight, preparing to defend herself.

_ Stay away from me, don’t touch me, I swear I’ll—oh. _

A terrified child, an elf probably no more than thirteen years old, was kneeling on the floor, torso curled over his knees.

“I beg your forgiveness! I am but a humble servant. F-forgive me, my Lady, I didn’t mean to!”

“Who are you?” she snapped. “Where am I?”

“You are in Haven, my Lady. I… I am Maren. A servant.”

Her heart was sprinting, and skipped a beat as she struggled to draw a steady breath. There were two exits to the room, a door, closed, and a window, halfway shuttered. The only occupants were herself and this child. There was a well-stoked fireplace in the wall, and Japhra herself was…

Was sitting on a bed.

“What the fuck?”

“My… my Lady?”

She looked at her hands wonderingly. Her right hand was still the same as ever, flesh and blood and bone. But her left… it was just the Mark. Not frozen and fully crystalline, with golden light playing like a spiderweb within. Her fingers flexed. “But I saw…” 

_ Markham. Konna. I was  _ there. _ How am I here? _

Slower, now, she took an inventory of her surroundings. There was a bite in the air, even stuck inside this room with the fire. Her fingertips were chilled, and she curled her hands into fists. There was a bedside table next to her, with a candle and a small lockbox. Furs lined the walls, sparsely enough to be for decoration and not for warmth. The handful of half-filled bookshelves and the desk in the corner suggested that this room belonged to someone else. But who? And why was she here? What more could they want from her?

_ They can’t possibly think I still did… everything. Could they? _

The boy was peering up at her curiously. When their eyes met, he flinched and bent lower to the floor.

She swallowed, and carefully softened her voice. “How long have I been in this room?”

“Three… three days, ma’am.”

“I was here, just now?” she pressed.

“Y-yes, my Lady. You were sleeping. I didn’t mean anything by it, I was just coming in to check the fire, Healer Adan said that you should be kept warm.”

_ Since when am I ‘my Lady?’ _

“Is this Healer Adan’s…” she paused, before deciding on the word, “residence?”

“No, my Lady. I’m not sure who it belonged to. I think it’s yours now. Please, I… I’m just a servant!”

_ Oh, great. He’s terrified of me now. That’s what you get for having such a shitmouth, Cadash. _

“I see,” she said, calmly running with it. “Were you sent here?”

“Yes, my Lady. To make sure the fire was set. But I’m certain the Lady Cassandra would want to know when you’re wakened. At… at once, she said.”

“She’s alive?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Japhra took a heavy breath, and swung her legs down over the side of the bed. Her toes swung several inches above the floor. With a groan, she ran both hands over her face, being careful not to let the Mark scrape against her skin. That was all the information she was willing to intimidate out of a child. Ancestors, the look on his face...

_ Maren. Brave enough to come in here in the first place. I’ll remember that. _

“You can stand up. I’m sorry I frightened you. Thank you for checking up on me. You can go report to… whoever you’re reporting to.”

_ I’ll find out soon enough, anyways. _


End file.
